London-based singer-songwriter Liya Shapiro immerses on her new track “Hold Me Tight,” channeling a brooding elegance that moves from shadowy restraint into sweeping rock-minded urgency. It presents a striking blend of mood and melody that feels at once personal and cinematic. Shapiro wrote the track’s verses and pre-chorus seven years ago, during a summer where she experienced unrequited love. Its chorus emerged this past autumn, culminating in a thorough success of a finished track.
“They say forget but I keep running back,” Shapiro’s vocals emerge immediately, amidst solemn piano pulses. Further descriptions of sleepless nights maneuver into a backing of suave rhythms and expressive backing vocal layers; the first 30 seconds stir in its late-night atmospheric setting and haunting vocal build-up. Thereafter, the track launches seamlessly into a more rock-ready vigor.
Shapiro’s vocals rise in invigorating form — beckoning to “hold me tight” — in a moment that resembles brief euphoria, then punctuated by a moody “fire in my heart … only darkness that surrounds me” observation that brings us back to ghostly, dreamier territory. Twangy guitars and magnetic bass work intertwine there, into another memorable title-touting hook. “Hold Me Tight” is a thoroughly enveloping success from Liya Shapiro, full of mood and emotion within its palpable melodic immediacy.
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We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
